Luna’s Lost Bond

~Chapter Eleven~

The reflection blinked when she did and still, somehow, it looked like a stranger.

Nyara stood frozen at the water's edge, her paws sunk into the cold mud, staring at the creature staring back at her. Black and grey fur, mottled like storm clouds bleeding into moonlight. One eye burning orange. The other a pale, unnatural blue.

This isn't me, she thought. This isn't my wolf.

She had heard the old stories; every pup in every pack had. Jet-black fur belonged only to the strongest bloodlines, to Alphas born once in a generation, wolves who could bend lesser wolves to their will with nothing but a growl. She had never been one of them. She had been white. Soft, pale, unremarkable white, with eyes the color of a clear winter sky.

Not this. Never this.

“Nyara.”

The voice broke through her panic like a hand closing around her heart.

She knew that voice. She had spent months chasing the ghost of it through silence, aching for even a whisper, and the last time she'd heard it clearly had been right before the darkness took her, right before she died.

“You're here,” Nyara said, or thought, or begged, she wasn't sure anymore where the line between them blurred. “You're really here.”

“I am,” her wolf answered, and there was relief in it too, raw and trembling. “I never left. I couldn't reach you. I tried.”

Nyara's breath caught somewhere between a sob and a laugh. She pressed her muzzle low against the earth, as if she could physically fold herself around the sound of that voice and never let it go again.

“Then explain this to me,” she said, lifting her head to stare at the black-furred stranger reflected in the water. Because I don't understand what I'm looking at. This isn't your fur. This isn't your color.

Her wolf was quiet for a moment, and Nyara felt her searching, turning the same question over like a stone in her paw.

It's not mine, her wolf finally said. But it's not entirely foreign either. I recognize this wolf. This is Elair's.

That's not possible. Nyara's thoughts sharpened into something close to panic. Elair's wolf would have to be an Alpha's bloodline for that color. She's nobody , a girl Darian found half-dead at the border with no memory of her own name. He gave her a place in his house and let the pack whisper "mistress" because it was easier than the truth. There's no way she carries a bloodline like this,

I don't have an explanation, her wolf snapped back, frustration cutting through the bond between them. I'm telling you what I know, not what makes sense. This is her fur. Her eyes. Her body. And somehow, I'm the one wearing it with you.

Nyara's mind reeled, questions crashing into each other faster than she could catch them. Why did I shift into her wolf and not ours? Where is her wolf? Why can't I hear anything from her , not even a whisper, not even static?

I don't know.

You don't know?

I don't know, Nyara. Her wolf's voice cracked on the words, something close to fear bleeding through her usual steadiness. I only know one thing for certain, and it's the only thing I can answer. We are soul bound. That's why I'm still here, still with you, even in a body that isn't ours. Everything else , the silence where her wolf should be, the color, the eyes , I'm as lost as you are.

The words settled into the space between them, heavy and unresolved, and for a long moment neither of them spoke at all. The stream murmured on, indifferent, moonlight scattering silver across its surface.

Nyara stared at her reflection until the mismatched eyes blurred, and something colder than confusion crept up through her chest.

You said you tried to reach me, she said quietly. Before. When I was sick. Did you know? Did you know what she was doing to me?

Her wolf went very still.

No, she said, and her voice trembled with something like guilt. I didn't know what it was. I only felt you fading , slipping further away every day, like something inside you was being hollowed out. I tried to warn you. I clawed at the edges of your mind every night, but you couldn't hear me. You were already too far gone by then.

The memory rose up unbidden , Eliot's small voice from the dream-walk, the flash of black glass, the poison sliding silent and unseen into her medicine. Liora's hand. Liora's smile. And her wolf, trapped and helpless, watching her fade and unable to do anything but howl into a silence no one answered.

Nyara's legs buckled beneath her, and she sank low against the mud, a whimper tearing from her throat that turned into something rawer, uglier.

I'm sorry, she said, the words breaking apart in her mind. I'm so sorry. You suffered because of me. Eliot suffered because of me. I let her,

Stop. Her wolf's voice was fierce now, cutting through the spiral before it could pull them both under. This was never your fault. Not mine. Not Eliot's. Liora did this. She chose this. You didn't fail either of us by dying, Nyara. You fought until there was nothing left to fight with.

Tears slid hot down Nyara's muzzle, dripping into the stream and vanishing into the current, carried away like everything else she'd lost.

I don't know how to fix any of this, she whispered.

Then we figure it out together, her wolf said. The way we always have.

A twig snapped.

The sound cracked through the night like a gunshot, and every instinct in Nyara's body seized at once.

Someone's here, her wolf said, already retreating, already pulling back into the quiet corner of her mind where survival lived. Shift back. Now. Before they see the wolf. If anyone recognizes this coloring,

She didn't need to finish. Nyara was already moving, already fighting the shift back into her human shape before the thought had fully formed. Bones cracked. Fur receded. Cold air slammed into bare skin the moment the transformation finished, and she barely had time to register that she was completely, utterly naked before the second sound came , closer this time. Footsteps, deliberate, careful, closing in from somewhere just beyond the treeline.

She scrambled behind the nearest tree, back pressed hard against rough bark, arms wrapped around herself as though that alone could make her invisible. Her heart slammed against her ribs so violently she was certain whoever was out there could hear it.

“Think.” She peered around the edge of the trunk, scanning the shadows, but the moonlight betrayed nothing , no shape, no shadow, just the shifting silver of leaves in the wind. If she ran now, she'd be seen. Worse, she'd look exactly like what she was , guilty, hiding, caught doing something no one could explain.

If it was a guard on patrol, running would only get her attacked first and questioned never. If it was worse than a guard,

If it's Liora, her wolf warned, tension coiling tight and ready beneath her skin, you can't let her see you afraid. Whatever happens, don't let her see you break.

Nyara pressed herself smaller against the tree, breath held so tightly her lungs burned. She strained to listen, praying for footsteps retreating, for silence, for anything,

The footsteps stopped.

Directly behind her.

"What are you doing here?"